Mark: Hi, it's Mark Bossert. I'm here with Mr. Bernie Pawlik. Pawlik Automotive in Vancouver. Vancouver's best auto service experience. 25 time winners of best auto repair in Vancouver as voted by their customers. And we're talking cars. How are you doing Bernie?
Bernie: Doing very well.
Mark: So today's victim is a reprise of an Audi A8 V10 that had a fuel injection problem this time. What was going on with this vehicle?
Bernie: Yeah, so this vehicle, we actually did a recent podcast on it about some intake valve cleaning but this vehicle actually came to us for a few items. And originally came to us for an out of province inspection, this person had moved from another province to British Columbia, and it requires a safety inspection, which we do. So doing the safety inspection, we found a couple of issues, and one of them was a fuel leak coming from one of the high pressure fuel injection pumps. So, these provincial inspections are basically a safety focused inspection, and having fuel leaking on top of an engine is definitely a safety issue.
Mark: So, what kind of diagnosis did you have to do? Anything further after you found the fuel leak?
Bernie: No, I just basically a visual inspection. It was pretty apparent where the leak was coming from and we'll look at pictures in a minute. I can show you where a leak was coming from. But yeah, that's basically it. It was pretty straightforward. No further diagnosis needed. There was no trouble codes related to this particular problem. Just a, you know, purely mechanical issue.
Mark: So was the leak in a seal or was it something that you had to replace the pump? It was in the actual fuel pump itself or the injection pump itself.
Bernie: Yeah, there probably was a seal, but there's no seal kits available. It's a kind of a precision built device and they just sell the pump complete. I mean, it's not cheap, but I think it's not crazy expensive compared to, you know, what it could be. I mean, a seal kit might only be 30 bucks and I can't remember how much the pump was. It's a few hundred. So a seal kit might've been nice, but again, it's a precision metered device, so it's probably best not to take it apart. But I'm sure there are people around who could do them and, you know, that's kind of definitely possible.
So I'm gonna look at some pictures and put my glasses on to look at, but I realized, I don't need them at the moment.
Okay. So there's the car, beautiful V10 engine Audi.
Mark: This is a 2007 vintage.
Bernie: 2007. Yeah, it's pretty nice looking car considering it's 15, 16 years old at this point.
There's our injection pump. That's the new pump mounted in place. Fuel lines located here. There's an electrical connection. The leak was coming in from this area here. I'm not sure which actual part of this component it is, but the leak was coming out of this area here. So there's definitely a seal. You can see there's a bolt that attaches through this area and that leak was coming from this section of the injection pump.
Another view from a different angle. Again, you can see the fuel lines, the electrical connector.
And the overall view of the top of the engine. You can see there's 2 injection pumps on this. This one serves the right bank. That's the one we replaced. You can see it's a little shinier than the other side that serves the left bank. So you have 2 pumps, you know, twice as much to go wrong.
And finally, there's the old pump. So this section here at the spring, this is driven by the camshaft. There's an oil seal there, the injector lines there, and then the leak, as I said, was coming from this section here. So again, maybe there's a rebuild kit, but we replaced the whole unit. It's better to do it that way. So there's the picture show.
Mark: So how difficult a replacement was this?
Bernie: This is a really easy job. Super simple. A couple of bolts, pop it off, a couple of lines and electrical connector, in and out. And on top of the engine too, which is you know, it's a rare, easy job to do on this car. There's a few things that are easy, and this is actually one of them, probably easier to do this than change the oil.
Mark: So was there any reprogramming or calibration that needed to be done after you replaced the pump?
Bernie: No, it was plug and play, so pretty straightforward and simple.
Mark: Is that still true given 2023 vintage vehicles?
Bernie: I would say so. I don't think much technology has changed, it's funny how in the world of automotive, there's certain leaps in technology and I don't think much has. I don't know if you know, this model is even still sold with this engine, but if it was, I don't know, this engine would be a whole lot different.
They'd probably find some ways to tweak a little bit extra horsepower, reduce the emissions a little bit or better fuel economy, because they're always looking to tune that kind of stuff. But I don't know that the base design of the engine would be any different. It would be probably just about the same. You know, the gasoline direct injection, which this engine has, that's what that pump is for, the direct injection system. It was kind of like the next leap forward in technology, but that's like, you know, it's now 15, 20 years old. So I don't know much else there is to do other than more turbos, you know.
Mark: How often do these pumps fail in your experience?
Bernie: Not very often. Not for leaks. We do very few of them. And not really too many performance issues either, but I mean, they do fail from time to time, but it's not really common. They're quite reliable.
Mark: And how are Audi A8s in general and maybe in the V10 variant, how are they for reliability?
Bernie: Yeah, they're good. It's a good car and it's a very, very fancy car. There's a lot that can go wrong with it. So it will cost you a lot more to fix than a sort of lesser car. This is like, you know, top of the top of the line. So there's a lot that can go wrong with it, but you know, for the, the kind of car it is, it's really reliable and well built. But you know, do expect to be paying more money for service and repairs because of the kind of car that it is.
Mark: Big brakes, fancy suspension, fancy engine, lots of horsepower, lots of things that go, boom.
Bernie: Exactly. And you know, some things are kind of common and shared amongst different models, like Audis for instance, if you remember from the picture, the ignition coils, those are the same that are used in the four cylinder. So they're really cheap. You know, and it was smart because Audi just used certain things from Volkswagen, you know, for many models. And I don't know if this injection pump is actually unique to this vehicle or it might be usable in a variety of other models.
It probably is unique because it's got a two, five cylinders, but it might well be the same as what's found on a four cylinder. And so in that case, it makes some of the parts cheaper, but other things like, you know, the transmission of course will be beefed up and the suspension will be unique and rare and more expensive.
Mark: If you're looking for service for your Audi in Vancouver, the guys to see are Pawlik Automotive. You can reach them on their website pawlikautomotive.com or you can book online book, you can book through the the old thing, called a phone. Yeah, that's what I'm trying to say. (604) 327-7112 to call them and actually talk to a human being. Although sometimes they are going to ask you to leave a message. They're busy. You have to book ahead. They're always busy. Pawlik Automotive, Vancouver, BC, Canada. Thanks for watching and listening. Thanks, Bernie.
Bernie: Thank you, Mark. Thanks for watching.
